Devil's Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam

Korea, Vietnam, Cuba, Berlin; these are the places of confrontation one thinks of when one considers the Cold War between the USA and the USSR. But there was one region often missed, yet which is influencing world events even now; the Middle East. It is here that the West in general, and the USA specifically, committed various acts and supported fiends of all sort in its endeavor to stop the spread of communism. Starting in the early 1900s, and picking up after WWII, western powers fought against nationalistic groups throughout N. Africa and the Middle East. They did this by allying with and aiding local Muslim fundamentalist organizations, such as the Wahabis in Saudi Arabia, the ayatollahs in Iran, and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. The nationalist groups were secular and progressive, and made easy targets for the religious fervor of the Islamists to campaign against them in various ways overt and covert. This was encouraged by the US thru the CIA, the embassies, international organizations such as the IMF and World Bank, and treaties of all sorts. The initial results were civil strife throughout the Arab world. This was followed by the rise of Islamist groups throughout the Muslim world, most noticeably the rise of Hamas in Palestine. By reading this book, one comes to understand that the actions of the US during the Cold War helped to create Al Queda, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Taliban, and various other Muslim fundamentalist groups both local and international. This then was the Devil's game that the US played. By siding with Islamists the US betted that together they could defeat communism. This happened, but what came after might be a lot worse.

Anyone interested in learning about the true dynamics behind Hamas's reportedly "shocking" victory in recent Palestinian elections may want to pursue this book's many stirring revelations about Hamas's roots. Dreyfuss reports that Israeli intelligence--particularly the Mossad--not only endorsed but participated in the creation and development of Hamas as an organization that could be used to defeat the PLO. "In the early 1980s", Dreyfuss writes, "Israel supported the Islamists on several fronts. It was, of course, supporting the Gaza and West Bank Islamists that, in 1987, would found Hamas . . . They were trying to defeat Arab nationalism with Muslim zealots." Hamas's recent electoral victory was hardly the surprise that mainstream media reported it to be. In reality, it was a rather predictable response to a gradual increase in support for Hamas over recent years inspired by the marginalization of Arafat and the PLO by Bush and Sharon (conspicuously absent from Dreyfuss's analysis, however, is that corruption within the Fatah party also contributed to Hamas's surge in popularity). As Dreyfuss's book documents, "in 1996, only 15 percent of Palestinians backed the Islamists", but, by 2002, that support had risen to 42 percent. Contrary to what some may think, "Devil's Game" helps readers understand that Islamic fundamentalists are adamantly opposed to Arab nationalist movements such as Arafat's PLO on religious grounds. This includes opposition to the creation of a Palestinian state, a concept of far less importance to Islamists than their agenda of "first Islamizing Palestine and the Arab world." Admittedly, one cannot help but wonder whether Dreyfuss shoots himself in the foot here, given that a major contention of his introduction is that peace between Palestinians and Israelis would end much of the current strife between east and west. Dreyfuss's analysis opens the door to another possibility--though apparently without the author's comprehension: perhaps Islamist assertions that tensions between Israel and Palestinians motivates their campaign of terror is actually a front designed to perpetuate their fundamentalist indoctrination of the region. The PLO's association with movements to "modernize" the Arab world by allowing for a comparatively more secular society provoked the bitter and vengeful disdain of Islamists. While the PLO sought to "secularize" The Islamic University in Gaza, for example, the Muslim Brotherhood from which Hamas emerged fought violently to "preserve its Islamist character". Reading Dreyfuss's book within the context of Hamas's recent triumph further enhances the allure of this absorbing read. It becomes especially amusing, for instance, to listen to Israeli officials denounce Hamas as a terrorist organization in the wake of their recent democratic victory--as if they didn't know what Hamas was back when they found it convenient to shake hands with them. Israeli officials continue to brilliantly manipulate Islamists

U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East over the years has helped to create a monster. Adapting a policy of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend", without understanding Islamic fundamentalism, has empowered the jihadists and backfired on us. Devil's Game begins with how the British used the fundamentalists to try to maintain their empire, by preventing Egyptian pan-Arabism, and supporting Saudi Islamism. Dreyfuss details how the United States, in its war on communism, abandoned secular Arab nationalist leaders in favor of militant Islamic radicals. The abandonment of Nasser and the support of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt are given a lot of focus in this book. The fear was that the nationalist leaders would lean towards communism, since they were engaged in such abominations as nationalizing industries. In the case of the Shah, we ignorantly hung on to a peacock feather dictator on his way out, who had no popular support, all the while grossly underestimating the fundamentalist threat in Iran. The failure to anticipate the Iranian revolution was a huge intelligence failure. The CIA was focused on clandestine minutia, while ignoring the political winds by watching mundane sources. Then there were attempts at courting Iran's fundamentalists, figuring they would be tough on communism and a bulwark against the Soviets. Ironically, they may have hated us more than they hated the Soviets, since Iran opened some trade with them. Israel also made its mistakes. The chapter on the Mossad's clandestine support of Hamas is timely, considering Hamas' electoral victory in Palestine. The Mossad used Hamas to drive a wedge in the secular PLO. Timely and important, read this and watch daily events in the Middle East unfold as a result of the blunders of our foreign policy. Dreyfus provides a good place to start figuring out what went wrong with such hotspots as Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan. Any one of these is deserving of a large volume or two. Yet Dreyfus manages to support his thesis on each of these areas. This is an important addition to a collection supporting the thesis that the biggest threat to national security is our blundering national security establishment. Not a conspiracy - they only wish they were that skillful.

America has been the biggest supporter of international Islamism in the world, indeed, and a major financial source for it to get on its legs. However the role of America and the victories of Islamists have only sometimes coalesced. Let us do a rundown: Militant Islam begins in the early 20th century in Egypt among the Muslim Brothers and in Saudi among the Wahabbis and in Pakistan. Militant Islam gains its first victories in Iran(1979) and unleashes the Algerian civil war, then beats the Russians in Afghanistan, takes over Sudan. Then it spreads to Lebanon in the 1980s, Egypt as well and Pakistan and then into Europe in Bosnia in 1990s and Chechnya as well. Then there is 9/11. All the while it maintains Saudi as a rear bease. America's support for this long history is scattered. America bankrolled the war in Afghanistan against the Communists. America supported the Muslim Brothers against Nasser in the 50s and 60s. America was involved in Bosnia and sided with Militant Islam against the Serbs. The case for American support of Hamas is tangential, and more an Israeli blunder. America had its first battle with Militant Islam in Lebanon in 1982. America ignored the Algerian Civil war. ' The truth is more blurry than this volume makes out. America didnt create militant Islam. America helped it grow. However America didnt 'cause' 9/11 anymore than America caused the Holocaust or America caused the Bombing of Pearl Harbor. Rather like in the latter cases, America is part of the picture. The choice to kill people in suicide mission is the fault and responsibility of the terrorist and his leader. America hopefully has learned from this disasterous policy, however in the case of Pakistan and Saudi, perhaps America is still blind. Seth J. Frantzman

I've only read the Introduction to Devil's Game, but if it is typical of the whole book, readers are in for quite a lively and insightful narrative. While describing the long historical developments that created the right-wing fundamentalism of the Islamist movement, Dreyfuss reminds us of the more mainstream secular, religious, and political currents in the Arab/Muslim world-and why U.S. policy chose to ignore or oust more moderate but "less reliable" leaders from power. He vividly shows us how a Cold War "maginot line" strategy of extreme Islamist regimes from Turkey through Pakistan was meant to hold and even destabilize the Soviet empire. Dreyfuss details how successive U.S. administrations directly or indirectly supported the numerous fanatical fundamentalist Islamist organizations: the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, the Wahabbis-empowering Frankenstein monsters throughout a region that U.S. policy makers understood primarily through a prism of fictional or prejudicial images. Devil's Game also shows how the demise of Iraq strengthened, not weakened, the Islamist fundamentalist fanatics and how ignoring the remaining Arabists in the U.S. left the planning for the Iraq war to "be carried out by know-nothings." The lively narration of the Introduction of Devil's Game alone is worth the full cover price, but the book gives much more.